According to yet another release of “The Podesta Emails” by WikiLeaks, Hillary Clinton had already chosen Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her vice presidential pick in July of last year. This means that she knew the system was rigged in her favor, and that she wanted a Spanish speaking running mate before Donald Trump won the Republican nomination.
In an email to John Podesta (now Clinton’s campaign chairman) from Erick Mullen, managing director of strategy firm Mercury, LLC, Mullen complained about “Bob Glennon.” The email is very brief, but it proved rather revealing.
Won’t stop assuring Sens Brown and Heitkamp (at dinner now) that HRC has personally told Tim Kaine he’s the veep.
A little unseemly
Erick’s iPhone
The “Bob Glennon” in the subject line likely refers to Robert Glennon, a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm Hogan & Hartson, according to LinkedIn. This man reportedly bragged to Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp that Tim Kaine had already been notified he was chosen for vice president.
After Ted Cruz’s stunt of choosing former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina as his running mate in the final stages of the Republican primary, this early decision may not seem quite as odd. But when compared to previous presidential campaigns, when the running mate was chosen only after the candidate secured his party’s nomination, it seems rather odd indeed.
For some inexplicable reason, Clinton seems to have known she would win the Democratic primary as early as July 2015 (when other candidates — like Joe Biden — could still have entered the race).
The selection of Kaine at such an early date also invites questions. The Virginia senator was not particularly well known, but his ability to give speeches in Spanish and his liberal take on Roman Catholicism suggest two major reasons Clinton would pick him.
Especially given the Republicans choosing Donald Trump — and another WikiLeaks email suggesting Clinton’s entire campaign strategy was to run against him from the get-go — this new revelation brings up questions. Naturally, appealing to Hispanics with a Spanish-speaking VP, especially after Trump’s negative comments about Mexicans got the media to widely decry him as “racist” for months, seems excellent strategy — in June of this year. The fact that Clinton chose Kaine before July of last year really raises the question of whether she could have predicted the final race against Donald Trump.
On the flip side, Clinton’s staff had already admitted to supporting a “Catholic Spring,” like the notorious failed “Arab Spring,” in order to push traditional Catholics in the direction of supporting contraception and abortion. This political subversion of a Christian church should be particularly terrifying — and it fits with Clinton’s choice of Kaine, a pro-choice and pro-gay marriage Roman Catholic.
According to a conspiracy theory (the “Kainespiracy Theory”), Kaine (who was chairman of the Democratic National Committee until 2011) resigned as DNC chair and recommended Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who had campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2008) to replace him, in exchange for a secret promise from Clinton that he would become her VP in 2016. This theory falls apart, however, since it was President Obama who encouraged Kaine to run for U.S. Senate in 2012 and again President Obama who supported Wasserman Schultz for DNC chair.
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